Found and Lost: The Flash IDE
Over the last few years as a Flash Developer, I’ve noticed something. Flash isn’t what it used to be. Back in the days of Studio MX, when I first encountered Flash, it was the Wild West of interactive development. Much of that had to do with it’s labeling as a “fad” and the fact that it was the only real IDE that could write small and compelling interactive content for the web. Now, several years later, in the modern wave of RIAs, offline capability, the HTML5 canvas, mobile devices giving a full desktop experience, and an undeniable mainstream shift to rich, portable online content, Flash as a platform is on the verge of becoming truly ubiquitous. However, Flash as a content creation application has been lost in the shuffle at some point along the way. With the recent relaunch of the Flash Platform, and the overwhelming call for more Flash-based content, I wanted to make heard our collective voice as devigners inside of the Flash IDE. This article is a call to the community, to make the IDE that so many of us first learned to program in what it once was. I can already hear some of you asking “What’s wrong with the Flash IDE?” Well, the problem may, in fact, be bigger than just Flash, but I’ll get to that in a minute. For now, let me attempt to explain what we Flashers observe on an all too regular basis.
To put it mildly, Flash has become bastardized. It’s unlike any Adobe product in the entire Creative Suite, and that may not necessarily be a good thing. Now what does that mean? What do most people think of when they think of the Flash? A timeline? An ActionScript editor? A splash page/banner ad creation tool? It’s the foundation of the Flash Platform, but it’s slowly losing it’s identity due to lack of refinement and advancement. I would go as far as saying that Flash CS4 is still absolutely riddled with bugs and seems to have been only lightly skimmed over during the QA process. Even it’s name hasn’t gotten attention. The “Professional” was only added when there were 2 versions of Flash. Now there is one. I think we can remove it now. As harsh as that sounds, there are issues that have plagued developers in the Flash IDE for years that still exist today, without explanation or resolution. All of the time, attention, innovation, marketing, and feedback that Flash misses out on seems to go into Flex, AIR, and most recently, Flash Catalyst.
[Ed. Note - Just to be clear, this is in no way a Flash vs. Flex debate, as I truly love them both and am super excited about their future together.]
Some of the evidence of Flash falling behind is pretty hard to miss. Flash CS4 can be an absolute hindrance to productivity due to its painfully slow performance and constant, almost predictable crashing (even on modern machines). Flash literally crashes, on average, once or twice a day for me, more depending on what I am doing. This really isn’t OK to us. I don’t use a Mac, but known Flash dude @JonMacDonald has informed me that Flash’s integration of OSX Spaces is an absolute nightmare. I have noticed the UI panels in Win XP to be highly buggy. Case(s) in point: try to reset the Debug workspace back to it’s shipping state after modifying it. It can’t be done. Once you change it, it’s essentially useless. Also, if Flash notices coding errors at compile time, it will still attempt to publish a swf, resulting in inexcusably-long publish times and the “Cancel” button in the “Test Movie” prompt to merely be there for show as it requires multiple clicks and confirmations.
Flash has always had a history of unpredictably dealing with other Creative Suite file types, but hope was high when we were told that CS3 would have a native importer for certain Adobe files. However, Photoshop and Illustrator files imported into Flash change can color profiles and lose fidelity, and must be re-imported to be updated instead of having round-trip editing functionality. One other note of interest that I have never seen pointed out is the fact that Flash and Illustrator have this strange love affair. They are the only 2 Adobe CS programs that I know of that allow multiple text objects on a layer. When Flash CS3 came out, Adobe made it very clear that Flash would now implement the drawing tools from Illustrator, specifically drawing attention to the pen tool. Whenever you try to import a file in Flash CS4, it always, without fail, defaults to the .ai filetype, which must be deselected each and every time. You can specify Flash symbol type and text inside of Illustrator. Why Illustrator? This isn’t in any other Creative Suite program that I know of.
Many of us were squirming with glee and fanning our faces with our hands when we found out that Flash CS4 was getting a sweet new Motion Editor similar to the one in After Effects. After a few weeks of incorporation into my daily work, I gladly got reacquainted with “Right-click>Create Classic Tween.” The question now is ‘why is the new motion editor/tween model not nearly as friendly as it was marketed to be, and when will the it be exactly like their After Effects counterparts? ‘. As it stands, the CS4 tween model sets unneeded properties and keyframes that I never asked it to set, and then doesn’t allow me to change or remove them. This type of proprietary workflow is part of what I mean when I say that the Flash IDE has been bastardized. Some other minor examples: Thank GOD for the Text Layout Framework, because the current text engine is literally broken. Why are the drawing tools that clunky, weird mix of pixels and vectors? Why is there still not a triangle setting in the polygon tool, and I have to click a button in the Properties panel to get a prompt that should be in the Properties panel itself now? Why is SWFObject the default method for embedding Flash inside of HTML in Dreamweaver and Flex, but not Flash?! And when, exactly, would I not want to use stroke hinting?!
And how psyched were we when we found out we’d get 3D in Flash Player CS4? Super excited, right? Well, as it turns out, it’s more like 2.5D. But that’s OK, I can let that one slide. It’s still really cool. At one point we were told that .fla files were history and that XFL files were the way of the future. Now, this is an interesting one. Flash CS4 was supposed to use the XFL format exclusively. XFL was supposed to be a hybrid XML/zip file similar to a zipped up Flex project, but had much more flexibility when interchanging the assets within it. I mean, it was big enough news to get Colin Moock to blog about it, so it had to be big , right?! 
However, it became this muted transport vessel for After Effects and InDesign compositions into Flash, and we were never really given an explanation.
This is the heart of my problem with iterations of the Flash IDE: old familiarities are held onto for unknown reasons, while originality and creative development are added elsewhere. We as a community are left with only guesses.
Remember how I said that the problem may be bigger than just Flash?
Well, I have never been invited to a Flash Bug Quash or a Flash Open Iteration Meeting and to this day, I know not one single thing about a Flash IDE Bugbase. Some of you may remember that Technical Product Manager for Flash, Richard Galvan, had encouraged us to leave feedback on his blog in an attempt to let users get some things off of their chests. But, other than a quiet follow-up, we have seen little in the way of steps to remedy those issues. Now, I’m not slamming Richard or the Flash team at all, as they’re obviously capable of some pretty radical things. The point is, Flash users have been crying out for innovation and fixes for years, and here we are still. Further to the point, there has been only one public pre-commercial release of Flash that I know of and even it was essentially just Macromedia Flash 8 with an AS3 complier. Flex now has nightly builds, which is great …if it’s your primary IDE. If any IDE needed constant community feedback, it was, and still is, Flash.
Before Flex, I don’t remember hearing “Flash is for designers”. I’m not sure how that started, but let me be the one to remind the community: There are still thousands, possibly even millions, of us who actually still do real development in Flash. Think about this. Have you ever tried to do the following quickly and easily in Flash? Drag and Drop with hit tests/areas, validating data, item rendering, constraint-based layouts, data binding or collecting/managing web services? There are no AJAX, CF, PHP, Java. ASP.Net or BlazeDS/LCDS wizards in Flash. Things in Flex have been so intuitive and absurdly easy, yet the modern era of the Flash IDE is now almost 10 years old, and we’re still using basically the same editor as we were in Flash MX (you knew I wasn’t going to let that one go unmentioned). The ActionScript editor and the Flash Platform itself, has outgrown the Flash IDE. There are a huge number of ActionScript Developers that have made the switch to using Flex Builder as their primary code editor. There are even people who use open-source alternatives such as FDT and FlashDevelop exclusively now, and we as Flash developers are asking “What about us?” Spending that time in such a powerful and robust Eclipse-based IDE, with all the awesomeness, forward-thinking approaches, and constant community-based improvement that Flex encompasses, leads one to wonder where Flash fits into the big picture. I mean, if Flash Catalyst has a timeline (albeit rudimentary) and is built on Eclipse, why can’t Flash be built on Eclipse? While we’re at it, why can’t there be a Flash SDK and a Flash Framework? The current component kit is lightweight, but extremely limited, especially when compared to the Flex Framework. Why can’t Catalyst, Flex, and Flash share a component framework or the Flash component set be lightweight MXML? Just thinking out loud here.
BOTTOM LINE: If you’ve read this far, you know a lot is going to have to change in order for Flash IDE-based developers to feel like Flash isn’t a 3rd class citizen in it’s own platform. What I would love to see, and I believe the Flash community deserves, is an active discussion between Adobe representatives and the Flash community which leads to solid proposed solutions to the issues listed in this post.
I know it sounds like quite a lofty goal, but think how progressive the last few years have been for the Flash Platform. Gumbo, AIR, Catalyst, Alchemy, Astro and all the unbelievable things people have created with them. Imagine what we can do to just a single IDE with a little effort, time, a lot of feedback, and a ton of Carbon code 
.
I know this wasn’t a short winded post but Flash is my first love, and I can’t sit back and let it be left behind any longer. I really think if we all work our butts off together, we can make some amazing progress for the Flash community and the Platform as a whole. A HUGE thanks to @JonMacDonald for taking the time to review, critique, and support the community’s needs.
P.S. If you want to start a flame war or pointless argument, create a MySpace page or go work for Syscon/Ulitzer. This is a time for positive, constructive, thoughtful discussion and exchange over the ways we can improve the Flash IDE and restore it’s place in the Platform. And with that, here …we …go. Flash on!
UPDATE:
I was going to save this for another post, but since it now seems appropriate in scope, here we go.
I’m just thinking off the cuff here, to fuel the discussion. These aren’t ideas I’m necessarily pushing.
Now, I can’t talk about Flash without bringing up the recent re-launch of the Flash Platform and the topic of Flex being rebranded. I understand why it’s happening and that Adobe needs to make money, but without getting into detail, I personally think it creates more confusion than it adds. When it comes down to it, what are the real differences between Flex, Catalyst, and Flash, and why should we keep so many of the overlaps? Why do we need 2 products with timelines that publish to swf? Do we really need 3 applications (Flash Catalyst, Flex, Fireworks) that write MXML, HTML, and CSS? Should Fireworks and Flash Catalyst be combined? [- Needs reference - not my idea, give me the link if you come across it so I can give credit]
Will Captivate be called Flash E-learning Creator now since it publishes to swf? [- Not my idea - can't name source at this time for NDA reasons] Should there be a standalone ActionScript/MXML editor that ties into any program you want? Should Flash Catalyst be the new Design View or States Manager in Flex? Lots of questions to think about, all affecting the future of the Flash IDE. Nothing of real substance, but just to get the ball rolling here.
42 Comments Have your say. ↓
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This is just my opinion (http://www.yapiodesign.com/blog/2009/02/23/could-flash-catalyst-replace-the-flash-ide/), but I think the Flash IDE (as we know it today) is coming to an end. Adobe has embraced Eclipse for Flex Builder, Flash Catalyst and soon, Bolt (CF editor). I personally feel that Flash Catalyst will be the new Flash IDE within a couple years. Once FC hits the market, it will already be able to do a fair bit of what is done in the Flash IDE today. Factor in a lifecycle or two, and I don’t think its too much of a jump to envision the Flash IDE (and all its legacy of issues) going away and FC becoming the new designer tool. The Pro’s for this switch far outweigh any negatives. Just my opinion though–take it for what its worth
I agreed with everything in your post up until you mentioned basing Flash on Eclipse.
Eclipse is terrible. I hate it and I’m not alone (I know many expert Flash developers who do not like using it). It’s the reason I don’t use FDT (that and it’s steep learning curve for what I see as little payoff), it’s the reason I don’t use FlexBuilder for anything other than MXML editing (only because FlashDevelop isn’t great at MXML).
Better that Adobe invest in FlashDevelop to make it cross-platform, which, of course, they won’t do because FlexBuilder is the affordable “best” Mac Actionscript editor. I’m willing to bet that Adobe makes money from selling FlexBuilder to Flash developers on Mac who aren’t using it for Flex but because the Actions panel is so poor.
Once FlashDevelop works on Mac, it’s game over for everyone else. You won’t need Flash for anything other than making timeline-based animations.
The same reason Flash Designers won’t hop on the Catalyst bandwagon is why the agencies still don’t use Flex: file size.
Until Catalyst can export SWF’s that don’t utilize the Flex SDK, and instead utilize a lighter weight one, Catalyst will be used strictly in the realm of creating Flex applications… or Flash apps that have a large file size.
If you compare the Flash IDE history to Director, it’s eerily familiar… and both seem to have the same end. The difference is, there are more Flash IDE users than Director users, so the market still may have some sway.
:: shrugs :: Feel your pain Kevin, but I gave up in 2004, and moved to Flex. That said, I still open Flash up in every Flex project, whether for creating/editing graphical skins, testing code quicker than I could in FB, or creating animated content for use in Flex. So, it certainly isn’t going away for me.
Kevin, great post. I have been thinking the same thing for some time and have blogged it pretty frequently, too.
The IDE is absolutely in need of a decent editor and soon! It’s too complex for the beginning designer and too simple for the developer.
Really want to hear what Adobe has to say on this.
Steven, thanks for the comments. I only mentioned Flash on Eclipse because Adobe has made it rather clear that’s the direction they’re heading. I think it’s actually a good thing because of extensibility and maturity, but I can also see the validity of your points. I want to make it so we can make these changes smoothly and realistically, and I that means even if future versions are built on Eclipse. At this point, I’m ready to take just about anything, but we still deserve some explanations.
This is exactly what I wanted though, to spur a discussion. We have went without questioning a lot of things regarding the Flash IDE for years now and obviously I don’t have all the answers. So, I couldn’t ask for better than you guys stoking the fire, who have a ton of wisdom and experience to share. Great start so far! Let’s keep it going! I’m awaiting AXNA approval now, so hopefully this will get to the eyes of people who can help get some answers and make something happen!
Thanks for voicing opinions I think many of us who have been using Flash for the last several version iterations have been grappling with. One “feature” of Flash CS4 that I find stunning is the removal of the integrated help applet in the dev environment and moving it to a more limited on-line HTML version. Coupled with the relative weakness of the Flash IDE actionscript panel, we are one of, I am guessing, many dev shops that have moved to using an outside application (currently in our case, Flex) to do actionscript development. Lee Brimelow over at GotoAndLearn has a nice tutorial on setting up for Flex / Flash development and he has authored a small Air app for setting up projects to use Flex as the scripting environment (http://theflashblog.com/?p=478). For our last major Flash site, we used the Flash CS4 IDE for 3 things, laying out the basic stage, setting up some importable objects in library classes, and publishing. The entirety of the remaining site was written in AS3 using Flex. IMHO Flex is miles ahead for actionscript dev with its code completion, hinting for custom classes, and contextual (and most importantly, in application) help. To me, CS4 was a very design-centric upgrade and concur that the future of AS3 development would appear to be moving towards and Eclipse based approach.
- Koof
Flash for me has become nothing more than a way to publish class based files. Which – granted I could do with a few extra lines via the SDK.
Flash has all but cleaned itself out of its own house. How absurd is it that you cannot even get proper code hinting for flash in flash? Why in the world should any program do a better job than flash itself?
IFF flash is to exist in the future, there needs to be some serious FREE fixes to its architecture. For example – opening a Flash CS3 file is almost certain to lag or completely crash flash. Even if that file does nothing but call an external Main.as. Things like this should be fixed long before flash considers releasing another “pay to upgrade”. Otherwise they can count me out.
When speaking of the grand opening bug, I’m referring of course to doing so in FlashCS4
“IMHO Flex is miles ahead for actionscript dev with its code completion, hinting for custom classes, and contextual (and most importantly, in application) help” – Koofka
If Flex Builder is miles ahead for those then FlashDevelop is light years ahead. There is no comparison between the two.
The only thing that FB and FDT have up on FlashDevelop is the ability to point out code errors (not syntax, but code) prior to compilation.
However, the time that is saved with that feature is dwarfed by FlashDevelop’s amazingly intelligent auto-completion, which Eclipse is unable to replicate.
I have a friend who codes C for a living and he was amazed when he saw FlashDevelop’s auto-completion and code generation. Of course, all the .NET and C# developers out there already know about this because FlashDevelop is based on Visual Studio, which is arguably the best code editor ever created. Were it not for VS, I doubt .NET and C# would be as popular as they are.
If you really want to help the Flash development community, help the FlashDevelop guys finish their Mac port. Once FlashDevelop is available on Mac, people will no longer have to buy Parallels or Fusion to run the best Actionscript editor out there.
Everyone who reads my blog knows that I have a lot of opinions on this area. First off let me tell you what the thoughts are from inside Adobe. It is not the intention to diminish the importance of the Flash IDE and there is still just as much work as ever being put into it. There is however a movement to better separate the various pieces of the Flash Platform into the different tools.
First let’s talk about Flash Catalyst. It is only capable of building Flex framework projects and there are no plans to change this. Catalyst is meant to fill the gaping hole that exists when it comes to doing design and animation with the Flex framework. It in no way overlaps with Flash as it can only do Flex, whereas Flash authoring can only do pure AS projects.
As for the future of Flash as a developer tool, that is indeed changing. There will mostly likely be very little work being put into the developer side of things in Flash authoring. The move is make Flex Builder the defacto standard AS editor for the platform. You will always be able to write frame scripts in Flash, but if you want a full-featured editor, use FB. The goal for Flash is create new ways for designers to add interaction without having to write a lot of code. This is similar to Catalyst where you can select a button and generate click handlers and simple interactions without code.
As for Eclipse, I am not a huge fan of it either. But I do really like coding in Flex Builder now and I do like that Eclipse is very extensible. Flash authoring will NEVER be based on Eclipse.
For me the biggest thing that I want to see happen is for Flex Builder to become an awesome editor for Flash authoring. The integration is still weak and we are working to address that. I am personally learning about Eclipse development so I can create cool extensions for Flex Builder. I would love it if other people in the community got into it to.
Another thing to note is that Flash CS4 went out with a lot of bugs and issues. We are planning to release a free update soon to address these issues.
I’ll check back here so if you have any questions of Adobe feel free to ask them here.
Lee Brimelow
Adobe
Wow, this is what I had in mind when I decided to write this post. Thanks so much Lee for giving us an honest look at what is going on at Adobe and the future of the Flash Platform. Keep it going guys!
Just wanted to address some specifics that you mentioned in the article:
- The motion editor is not perfect but it is a huge step forward for Flash. I have heard of some weirdness regarding removal of keyframes and other issues. We will of course be making things better in CS5 but overall it was a huge improvement.
- The PSD and AI importers still suffer from some issues, particularly the color shifts with PSD files. I will ping the team and let them know about your post.
- The goal was to make SWFObject the default embedding code in Flash CS4. I think it just didn’t make in time. But to clear, SWFObject is the recommended approach for embedding Flash.
- XFL is going to be the new file format for Flash. The first step in CS4 was add the import capabilities for XFL. Completely replacing FLA was out of scope for CS4 but it will happen.
- You mentioned that thousands of developers use Flash authoring. I have made this case to the powers that be at Adobe but the general consensus is that developers are doing their coding elsewhere. I personally disagree with this but it is what it is.
I see it becoming:
RIA w/Flex:
PS/AI/AE -> Catalyst-> Coding IDE
Small Flash ( i.e banners ):
PS/AI/AE -> Flash Authoring
Big Flash ( i.e. games):
PS/AI/AE -> Flash Authoring -> Coding IDE
@Steven Sacks
Flash Develop is really just a hair ahead of something like Textmate. FDT and Flex Builder have debuggers and much more .swc integration over FlashDevelop.
I code AS3 daily using the IDE only for visuals and compiling, and TextMate for all code and project-file managing.
The IDE works well enough, but the actionscript panel is pretty pedestrian. Six options for syntax coloring? No splits? No snippets or macros?
There are simple text editor capabilities that it seriously lacks for basic usage. The only bonus it has going for it is code completion, but I’ve gotten used to working without that.
I’ve tried FB a few times and really can’t get into it. We do mostly custom everything, and I don’t have an engineering or comp-sci degree or the aesthetic tolerance for such an ugly interface. I respect it and expect to have to get into it soon enough, but am really not looking forward to it. It gives me a glimmer of hope to see Lee on here and listening.
For me there seems to be intended incompatible workflows between Flex and Flash that need to be resolved. The new CS4 timeline is amazing but Flex Builder 4 seems like we are starting over with doing tweens and animations. From the Flex Builder side we have fantastic code completion and in the near future great wizards for connecting to data services. I personally am happy to purchase both products for our team to use best of bread tools. However it seems like the two programs from Adobe that compile a swf are designed to be incompatible. Why can’t I bring a flex project into flash to make animations or compile as3^flash in side of Flex Builder which has great AS3^Flex code hinting without doing a crazy path edit. This is like using Borland products with Rational tools. It’s the same “language” but they don’t play well together. JesterXL hinted at probably the core which is what is AS3? What is Flex SDK? What really is the Flash SDK? How can the language stop from being fragmented so that you can use your knowledge in both ide’s For example to know that you can still use a RemoteObject in Flex or Flash or the plethora of other api’s. It seems like a daunting task to bring a very forked product line back together. Adobe does not even consider them in the same product family so bringing them together in the future would be a huge step. Long live Flash IDE! If we can fix some of these workflows they can coexist!
The huge flex sdk footprint is another mess for another day!
I don’t agree that serious developers use Flash as their coding tool. Serious developers on Windows use FlashDevelop. On Mac, they are split between FDT, FlexBuilder and TextMate.
I know I don’t want Adobe wasting time improving the Actions panel. That time is better spent fixing more important issues.
FlashDevelop integrates with the Flash IDE already (you can hit CTRL+Enter in FlashDevelop and it will Test Movie the current document in Flash). That’s all the integration I need.
This is getting off-topic, though. There are lots of outstanding issues in Flash CS4, but I think that, at least for Mac users, Flash CS4 is a big step forward (despite the bugs with Spaces). For Windows users, Flash 8 was the last great version. CS3 was terrible. CS4 is like a lateral knight move. It’s better than CS3, but bad decisions were made and bugs that shouldn’t have gotten through did. These things unfortunately marred the Flash CS4 release.
I still think it’s a move in the right direction, just hope the next move is more forward than sideways.
@Alan
I used to use TextMate and there’s no comparison. It’s auto-completion is weaksauce. You can’t select multiple lines and TAB them (come the f**k on). You can’t drag a new document onto an open window, you have to drag it onto the dock icon or TextMate thinks you want to inject the text into the open document (retarded).
TextMate is only good for other languages. It’s Actionscript support is shoddy. At one time it was the only game in town for Mac and was better than the Actions panel. That time is no more.
I haven’t had any issues with swcs and FlashDevelop. Then again, I don’t spend a ton of time using swc files unless I’m doing Flex, which FlashDevelop is admittedly not the best at (it’s not called FlexDevelop).
I question why Adobe chose to call it Flash Catalyst instead of Flex Catalyst. It might be the “Flash Platform” but Catalyst is a Flex tool. Cast it as such.
var FlexBuilder:Flex
var FlashCatalyst:Flex
var FlashCS4:Flash
What’s wrong with this picture?
@Steven I would disagree with one point:
var FlexBuilder:FlashAndFlex;
Lee
Our company didn’t go for Flash cs4 as the quality of the product didn’t meet our expectations.
We now do everything in FlashDevelop, with the occasional aid of swc’s from Flash cs3.
Agree with pretty much everything written here.
My suggested improvements to the IDE would be:
– Fix all the bugs in CS4 – don’t wait for CS5!
– browse button when setting class linkage of a library item – C’mon it’s so obvious!
– Way to bind symbol to a class so that adding something to the stage automatically adds a variable to the class – NOT THE SAME AS “automatically declare stage instances” which sucks as it only does it at compile time.
– Speed up publish time by not re-compressing all assets every time you publish.
@Lee Thanks for getting in on this – I think you’re ignoring FlashDevelop though, which is mad, because to Windows-based Flash developers it is probably the biggest improvement to Flash since MX2004. I use FlashDevelop with Flash CS3 for all my development work (mostly games) and I find I am twice as productive compared to my old days coding in the IDE. People who complain that it doesn’t have a debugger are missing the fact that Flash IDE has a decent debugger.
@Lee:
“You mentioned that thousands of developers use Flash authoring. I have made this case to the powers that be at Adobe but the general consensus is that developers are doing their coding elsewhere. I personally disagree with this but it is what it is.”
I don’t mean to be crass, but what world are these guys living in? People code in environments other than Flash precisely because the development environment is so lacking. The question isn’t “what people are using now?”, it’s “what would people be using if Flash had a capable editor?”. I, for one, would be using Flash, as it’s a huge convenience. I’m quite happy using TextMate, but it’s still a step away from Flash, and I’d much rather have my development and publishing integrated.
This blogpost could lead to a good discussion. The first thing adobe should do now, is to spend some time, to fix these 100+ obvious bugs in the IDE – some of them were mentioned in the previous post. If they are not sure, which bugs to fix, just spend at least one day by just actually using the IDE.
In general, they should spend more than 5 minutes to think about new features and how to implement usefull additional functionallity in upcoming versions. (Did anyone recognize, that some features where removed from CS3 to CS4, which were obvisouly useless, like timeline-effects …).
Some of usefull functionallity, almost every Flash IDE User is waiting for years now, are obvious and need to be implemented: A much better AS-Editor, for example. Don’t hesitate, just do it!
PS: Personally I am not that sure, Adobe is really interested in a serious dialog with Flash IDE users.
+1 for FlashDevelop. I only use Flash IDE for doing quick layouts now, and I don’t think I’ll ever look back!
Thanks for the rant, it all needed to be said.
I love flash and as much as I like coding and some of the awesome things you can do with FB really easy. Flash will always be number one in my book. The need to fix the hundreds of obvious bugs still plaguing CS4. And just to bring something new up why does it take so ridiculously long to start up? CS3 was twice at fast.
I have to agree with Colin Campbell as well. The only reason I use FB to write AS is because the flash IDE is so lacking in obvious functionality that should be there. Adobe needs to wake and recognize this.
Thanks Lee for your input. At least we know someone is watching and listening.
And Thank you for this post. All of it really needed to be said. I’m glad some has finally thrown it all out there.
This is great stuff guys! Thanks for all the compliments. I just thought we needed to let the community voice their concerns and the response has been incredible. I hope this makes a difference.
It would be a shame if the Flash IDE as we know it will dissapear. Lots of people make perfectly good use of this IDE and thus is should stay in existence and also needs to be upgraded ( like is happening now ). But the IDE only supports people whom work with timelines, components, etc etc… Adobe should make a tool ( next to the IDE ) for developers that do pure Actionscript3.0 coding.
The Flash IDE itself it crap for large sums of code, thus those developers choose a 3rd party tool…
So basicly the only thing Adobe should do, is to make a tool purely dedicated for the pure code developers, but they should NEVER throw the Flash IDE away.
Forgot to mention, if you want Ctrl-Enter/Cmd-Return in Flex 4, vote for it here:
https://bugs.adobe.com/jira/browse/FB-18799
Kevin, awesome post! As much as I hate to be negative towards Adobe, because I truly love them and I know you do too, I agree with the need to really think about the Flash Platform moving forward.
I don’t have CS4 so for me it’s all greener grass, which I am starting to see is really more of a brownish color.
This is all starting to feel more like Microsoft’s Expression suite, where all the programs are all separated per task set. But really who uses them?
I suppose I do have a certain level of faith in Adobe to see not what we need but what we’ll need NEXT. I expect them to see into the future and solve the problems that don’t even exist yet. And maybe that is what they are doing right now, but they can only get a certain amount completed in any one development cycle, so you are simply experiencing the growing pains. Either way I don’t feel like they are working in the wrong direction, but there is work that needs to be done to make a lot of people happy.
Just had a great call today about improving the AS editor for CS5. See how effective blogging can be?
Lee
Heck yeah Lee! That is FANTASTIC news! Like I always say, “The squeaky blog post gets the Flash editor worked on.” Shut up, I was already leaving.
HOLY CRAP! Thanks Lee! Kevin, way to go! Definitely awesome.
@Lee, exactly what features/fixes/improvements do you think will be first to be added?
@Everyone else, what do you think the first priorities should be?
I’m excited!
The outcome here, with Lee reporting on a great call regarding the Flash CS5 editor is just a start. In the past, wish lists have been created for next generations of applications from Macromedia and Adobe… how about a public wish list/wiki specifically about the AS editor in Flash?
BTW: I still use Flash for a lot of AS editing, and also use FlexBuilder… FB does piss me off at time though, primarily because it’s not a OSX app, but because it acts like some Linux X11 stuff with a bit more chrome around it.
I don’t use Textmate or other editors because I really like “Command+Return”. Pure and simple. Keith Peters had a post on his site regarding FB and Flash IDE and how setting up a project just to do some scratch testing of AS code was counterproductive to a creative process.
I strongly agree with that sentiment.
@Chad I agree strongly. As I was trying to say in the post, the problem is bigger than Flash, but making it really solid would be a great start. It is far from being JUST about the editor, though that is a spectacular way to start. Good observation.
@Lee: A zen master would say: We will see, what this will lead to. I don’t have much expectations any more in adobe, but I am still looking forward for any real! surprise!
(What does adobe expect by ignoring flash users for years?) Macromedia didn’t do it this way, that’s for sure!
Do not forget growing AS & MXML support in IntelliJ IDEA. Its IntelliSense features in 8.1 version are great.
Another bug, which is ridiculous for any Flash IDE user, who will use the timeline.
http://www.untoldentertainment.com/blog/2008/10/23/cs3-pitfalls-stop-action-ignored-on-nested-movieclip/
Fix it!
First of all, thanks Kevin for your fantastic creation: devigners. I always asked myself how to name what we all do and this sums it up pretty well while laying a focus on design.
My contribution to this discussion is nothing more than the pure disappointment concerning the Flash IDE. I quit using the IDE since Flash 8, although I used to love the IDE. Back than I basically tryed everything that was – and still is – around that time: TextMate, Flash Develop with Parallels, Flex Builder and even XCode. With Flash 9 I ended up with FDT which is still my Editor of choice today. Coming from a design background Eclipse and FDT were – and sometimes still are – not intuitive at all. The learning curve was very steep from the beginning. But beeing rewarded by the use of ANT with custom MXMLC compile tasks were worth all the trouble.
Although as Lee pointed out the Flash IDE will never be based on Eclipse, which is good news by the way because it would scare away even more people than the Flash IDE will ever do, I think there are some things that should be integrated into the Flash IDE to bring it back in the game. Apart from the Editor and many other obvious bugs listed here, I think one improvement can’t be stressed enough: Compile time! When you are working on larger (Plain-AS3-)projects this will be crucial to the decision which Editor you will use. I ask myself why is it possible that the MXML-Compiler called by an ANT tasks is up to three times faster than the Flash IDE for the same content? Doesn’t the Flash IDE make use of the same compiler? Just wondering…
@Kevin once again, thank you for starting this post. Hopefully this will draw more attention to this topic.
Well, I was thinking to get vista with my custom computer, but I’m staying with Xp until Windows 7 comes. The same with Flash, I’ll wait until CS5.
It’s really sad that some other packages are swiftly stealing Flash’s customer base, specially for animation, ToonBoom for example, giving way way much better tools and workflow and by the time Adobe refocus it’s hammer in it’s faithful and old fanbase, it will be too late.
They’re wearing out a strong brand, proof of that is when you say flash: eeehh, the platform? the IDE? an app, an animation?
It’s a fact of life they’re going head to head with the big boys in app dev. and like any war, we’re (The Flash IDE paying customers) paying for it.
So, if by CS5 I’m not being given a king’s treatment for my hard earned money, I’m going elsewhere (and anybody I can evangelize in my small world)
Just for the notes: I am working with the Flash IDE, since 2001, ok forget it!
Wrote two german books about the Flash IDE (at least one of it, was actuallly a bestseller), ok forget it!
Go on! Spare one developer on the flash ide, dont support book authors on their proven books, write your own books and support your authors on it. Don’t answer emails about it, don’t answer email to approved developers as well.
Dont care about obvisious problems, let the flash ide die, but a) dont say anytime, you are suprise about it and b) don’t say you are surprised loosing it all.
You will propably say so, but no serious dev. will trust you anymore. I don’t take you too serious any more anyway for some years.
Fuck it all up, no problem, just please let anyone know!
Buy-in several obvious features, like you did before (IK, oh i noticed), but dont expect to hold the market doing it. Because you are so dumb doing it and no one will listening it any more, Grow up!
Kevin,
I really appreciate you sticking up for us Flash Developers. I love FlashDevelop, but that’s only because Flash Professional doesn’t supply me with those tools. I still prefer to develop everything in Flash w/ FlashDevelop as my coding environment. I haven’t made the switch to Flex yet, mainly because it confuses the ever-loving shit out of me. I consider myself very good at actionscript and thinking in code, yet the minute I open Flex I feel like I’m in some cold dark lonely place. I get confused when I get detached from my library and my stage, and sometimes even my timeline.
Let’s do lunch soon.